Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei's Bullet Screen Wish Machine

"What...what did you say?!"

Su Xiaoqiang's eyes widened.

Did he feel it wasn't enough, and wanted more...?

Su Xiaoqiang's cheeks suddenly flushed red.

No, that's not what I meant.

Lu Mingfei snapped out of his daze and quickly explained:

"...I'm being stubborn. I remembered a line I saw in a TV series before."

The first statement is true, the second is a lie.

Lu Mingfei's statement was actually referring to the wish-granting machine's ability to determine wishes.

Many of the comments were related to kissing. Although the collision with Su Xiaoqiang was an accident, it should have confirmed that they kissed.

But the wish points did not arrive.

A superficial attempt does not fulfill the conditions for achieving one's desired outcome.

Perhaps I could find an opportunity to experiment with it... Lu Mingfei thought to himself.

………………

That evening, at eight o'clock.

California sunshine.

Lying on the soft bed in the bedroom, Lu Mingfei felt rather lazy.

Although I slept here last night, I'm still feeling the novelty.

As the most prestigious villa area in the west of the city, California Sunshine is impeccable in terms of house design, lighting, and greenery.

The only downside is that such a large villa is mostly empty because he lives there all by himself.

Just then, his phone suddenly vibrated.

Lu Mingfei touched the Nokia N95 and found that someone had sent him a message.

Chen Wenwen: "Lu Mingfei, I've read your reading notes, and I think they're very insightful."

Lu Mingfei: "Please call me President."

Chen Wenwen: "President Lu."

Lu Mingfei: "..."

He sent that message just to joke around, but she seemed to take it seriously.

Lu Mingfei quickly sent a new message:

"Just kidding, I'm not that ambitious for official positions... Also, thank you for the compliment."

"May I ask, your reading notes are so well-written, why don't you share them at the book club?"

Chen Wenwen asked.

Lu Mingfei did not answer immediately.

He asked Chen Wenwen a question in return:

Have you finished reading *The Stranger*?

Chen Wenwen: "Yes, it's very impressive."

"The Stranger" is an existentialist literary work. The book is not long; when translated into Chinese, it is about 5 words.

The protagonist, Meursault, is a very cold, or rather, overly realistic person.

In his interpersonal interactions, he refused any form of performance. At the beginning of the novel, his mother died, and at the funeral, all the other guests were crying, but Meursault showed no sadness and went through the funeral procession as if it were just a formality.

To others, he was cold and unfilial... but Meursault only found their crying somewhat noisy.

The day after attending his mother's funeral, Meursault went to see a comedy movie with a female colleague and then played a game of mahjong to his heart's content... He didn't have any feelings for his female colleague; he just wanted to have some fun.

Later, Meursault became embroiled in a romantic entanglement that was originally unrelated to him. He got into a conflict with someone, and because of the glaring sunlight and the hot weather, he shot and killed someone in a fit of irritability.

In court, Meursault was sentenced to death, not primarily for committing a crime of passion, but because his cold-blooded behavior at his mother's funeral proved him to be an antisocial individual and a born killer, deserving of the death penalty.

His lawyer advised him to find some excuses to absolve himself, and the priest advised him to convert to religion to gain peace of mind. Meursault rejected all the advice and gladly accepted his death at the end of the story.

As an absurd work, its logic need not be scrutinized. The whole book tells the story of a person who refuses to perform, who is judged and executed by a world that demands everyone to perform.

Among them, the spirit embodied by the protagonist Meursault is particularly vivid. When the whole society tries to impose a set of ideas on Meursault, such as "You are indifferent because you are too sad", "You are devout, just unaware of it", "Deep down you have the moral sense of a normal person", it is very difficult to understand.

Meursault's answer from beginning to end was:

"No, this isn't true."

In the end, he chose to abandon the yes or no answer, because after accepting death, all misunderstandings would turn to dust with him, and Meursault would gain a freedom that was not defined by others.

After reading it, Chen Wenwen was deeply shocked.

In the hearts of artistic young women, this kind of character who rejects all hypocrisy and pretense and uses their life to make a final stand against the world is extremely charming.

She was eager to let more people know about the book, and at the same time became curious about Lu Mingfei's behavior of keeping his reading notes as collateral and refusing to share them.

Lu Mingfei thought for a moment:

"After reading your reading notes, think back to the works recommended by the other students. What are your thoughts?"

Chen Wenwen was silent for a while, but finally replied to his message:

"I didn't think there was a problem before, but now I feel... they're putting on an act."

Normally, Chen Wenwen wouldn't say such things, but after reading "The Stranger," she's being a bit too honest now that Camus is scheming against her.

"That's why I put down my notebook."

Lu Mingfei answered.

Good writing can be "poisonous"; if you delve too deeply into it, it can easily get stuck in your brain.

But renowned writers don't write to cripple readers' minds; they hope to offer some beneficial insights.

Chen Wenwen felt that the club members were a bit pretentious, and that wasn't wrong—reading, especially reading profound works by famous authors, requires a certain age and experience.

A group of high school students holding up "Death in Venice" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," pointing to the descriptions related to lust, insisting on looking beyond the surface to the essence... it smacks of pretentiousness.

But it doesn't matter if they pretend a little. It's already good enough that young people are willing to read classics and explore these things.

Even a superficial understanding is enough to nourish the spirit. Even if you don't understand it at all, discussing it together can be quite lively.

"I see."

After a long while, Chen Wenwen sent this message: "Lu Mingfei, you are a very capable person."

Lu Mingfei: ? ? ?

What have you figured out now?!

He simply felt that it was inappropriate for him to pour cold water on the discussion when everyone was having such a lively conversation.

How did this artsy girl manage to interpret it in such a way?

Chen Wenwen:

"Your final reading notes concluded with the following: 'I read this book not to become Meursault. He was honest, but he was also lonely, making peace with himself in solitude, and dying alone in his cell.'"

I would rather he hadn't reconciled; I would have hoped he would come out alive and interact with the world in a different way, but Camus didn't give him that chance.

Just like the three stages of life where one sees mountains as mountains again, what you're trying to express is that after seeing things from an outsider's perspective, you still choose to stand with everyone and embrace the world in a more courageous way, right?

Lu Mingfei: "Another inch."